It's tempting to call "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" a surprise hit — but
it's only really a surprise if you haven't been paying attention. Here's why
the monster mash crushed the box office. In its opening weekend, "Godzilla x Kong"
eviscerated its modest $50 million studio projections to bring in $80 million at the
domestic box office. This is far and away the best opening weekend for a MonsterVerse film
since 2014's "Godzilla." By 2024 standards, it has topped every single opening wee
kend
so far except for Denis Villeneuve's "Dune: Part Two," which made $82 million in its first
weekend. If you count Easter Monday, though, "Godzilla x Kong" trounced even "Dune,"
claiming the crown with $87.7 million. "Godzilla x Kong" also stomped all over
the fleeting box office king "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire," racing right
past its total domestic haul. Globally, "Godzilla x Kong" made just over $202
million in its first week. While this number isn't necessarily something to roar at
given its
$135 million budget, it's obvious that the film's success isn't being carried solely by overseas
markets. Though "Godzilla" is a Japanese import, there's clearly still a massive appetite
for kaiju stories in America as well. "Godzilla x Kong" is sitting comfortably
in third place on the current list of the Top 10 highest-grossing films of the
year. Given that it also had a better domestic opening than "Fast X," "Wonka,"
"Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning," and "Elemental" — a
ll of which netted spots
on 2023's top 10 list — it's probably safe to say "Godzilla x Kong" is a lock for
this year's final 10 highest earners. Discount DVD bins are littered with failed
cinematic universes that attempted to follow in the footsteps of the MCU, and it's all
too easy to overlook that the MonsterVerse is arguably the most successful to steal
this storytelling strategy. The DCEU, for example, got stuck in a place where people
mainly compared it to Marvel's successes, both cri
tically and commercially. Though the
MonsterVerse has yet to reach the same peaks as either Marvel or DC, it has managed
to maintain and slowly grow a universe with a sound continuity and relatively
consistent characters and aesthetic. All of this is to say that "Godzilla x Kong"
had the unique benefit of being part of a larger franchise, as well as being able to confidently
offer audiences a story that would uphold the integrity of what has been produced in the
MonsterVerse thus far. This
franchise as a whole projects confidence and clarity, and that's pretty
refreshing among today's cinematic universes. "That's not just a signal. That's a call for war." Of course, for anything to be a
true cinematic universe these days, it has to include a slightly
unnecessary prestige streaming series that simultaneously claims to be vital
to the overarching narrative while also being deliberately ignorable. And even though
the AppleTV+ MonsterVerse series "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" is
both of those things,
it happens to be pretty darn good — so good it has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of
anything the franchise has produced to date. It's hard to say whether or not it would have hurt
"Godzilla x Kong" if "Monarch" had been panned by critics and viewers. As a consequence of its warm
reception, however, the MonsterVerse got a solid two months of favorable press through mid-January
— just a month before Warner Bros. and Legendary would kick off the marketing push for "G
odzilla
x Kong" in earnest with a second trailer. So what if "Monarch" isn't vital to the
overarching narrative of the series, and who cares if it adds more than a few wrinkles
to the MonsterVerse timeline? At the very least, it helped create the momentum needed for "Godzilla
x Kong" to succeed to the extent that it did. "That is our ride. Come on. Let's go." Warner Bros. ruffled more than a few
feathers when it made the controversial decision to release its 2021 slate of films on
the stre
aming service now known as Max. There were valid concerns about how the move
might undermine the struggling theater industry and compromise the creative visions
of those who made these movies possible in the first place. Yet although "Godzilla vs.
Kong" was made available on the streamer for all subscribers at no additional cost, the film
still managed to generate an impressive $48.5 million in its first five days in theaters
— a pandemic record, according to Variety. *Godzilla roars, then
kong roars* Now, it seems clear that this pandemic-defying
performance provided the MonsterVerse specifically with at least one unique benefit — audiences
were still up-to-date on the series. Plenty of franchise films managed to debut
during the pandemic with similar or identical release strategies but failed to
make the same impact as "Godzilla vs. Kong." In "Godzilla x Kong's" case, it seems
as though the fanbase was as active as ever during the pandemic. Perhaps even more so,
given they
started a grassroots Twitter campaign to urge the studios to make another film.
The hashtag #ContinueTheMonsterverse began trending in April 2021, and even Legendary
Pictures tweeted about it. It's probably at least a little due to the fan campaign
that Godzilla and Kong got to reunite. What about those who didn't keep up with the
MonsterVerse during the pandemic? Not all audiences are attached to Godzilla as a character.
But there's a chance that some people were converted by the 2023 sle
eper hit "Godzilla Minus
One." Aside from blowing everyone away at the box office and surpassing Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite"
as the third-highest-grossing non-English film in America, it also targeted a slightly different
moviegoing audience than the MonsterVerse films. While the MonsterVerse has the aesthetics, tone,
and scale of a typical American blockbuster, "Godzilla Minus One" is quieter and starkly
pensive. In other words, it's not the sort of movie for those who just want to see a gia
nt
monster cause unimaginable havoc — though it does have plenty of that to offer. As such, it
stands to reason that some audiences who had no interest in kaiju flicks but took a chance on
"Godzilla Minus One" because of the positive word-of-mouth might have left the theater
understanding why people love these films. You don't need to see every Godzilla
film in order to see "Godzilla x Kong," but the award-winning "Godzilla Minus
One" might have allowed some people to connect with Godzilla
who had never
seen a kaiju film before. Subsequently, these newly converted fans may have decided
to take a chance on "Godzilla x Kong" as well, particularly as ads for the new American film
often played before the subtitled Japanese one. With endless casting announcements and
overstuffed trailers, it often feels like big-budget movies don't have any surprise
reveals to offer anymore. On the other hand, the films in the MonsterVerse largely choose
to play their cards closer to the chest t
han their competitors, even keeping iconic
villains under wraps as much as possible. The first trailers of the 2014 "Godzilla"
were memorable for how little they showed of the titular monster, instead focusing on
the haunting reactions from bystanders and the harrowing consequences of his power. They also
didn't reveal the film's secondary antagonist, a strategy the distributor employed again to
even greater effect for "Godzilla vs. Kong." Ticket buyers familiar with the series were
likely
excited to see if there were any similar reveals in store in "Godzilla x Kong." That
expectation also likely influenced many fans' decisions to see the movie in the first weekend,
to avoid having any surprises spoiled for them. "Godzilla x Kong" is a rare
bird at the cinema — and no, it's not just because it features
monkeys and monsters fighting side by side. The early months of 2024 have been
predictably sleepy in terms of studio output. Apart from "Dune: Part Two," the buzziest
release
s of the year so far have been the likes of "Argylle," "Madame Web," and
the "Mean Girls" musical remake — and, as we mentioned above, the stiffest
competition Godzilla is facing at the moment is the lackluster
"Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire." "Heads up. Tall, dark, and horny at 12 o'clock." With both "Dune" and now "Godzilla x Kong," it
feels as though we're finally moving out of the dump months and getting into the films
that studios are actually excited about releasing. It certainly doesn'
t hurt that the
particularly flashy opening weekend of "Dune: Part Two" might have shocked some adult
moviegoers out of their winter slumber by getting them back into the routine of going to
the theater every once in a while. In this case, "Godzilla x Kong" was arguably the only film
poised to capture their attention right now, and it benefited from both the jump-start from
"Dune" and the current lack of competition. Trailers have a major impact on a
film's immediate commercial viability,
and a studio can't expect numbers
like "Godzilla x Kong" unless it has the marketing to back it up — which
is precisely what "Godzilla x Kong" had. From sweeping location shots that show off the
film's visual tone and scale to the haunting music, the first trailer for "Godzilla
x Kong" perfectly captures the energy that fans watch these films to experience.
Dread, majesty, triumph — it's all there. These early trailers also maintained a sense of
mystery by teasing plot points and character
s rather than explaining or showing them outright.
Again, in an age where it's all too common that audiences know virtually everything about a major
studio release before going into the theater, it's genuinely inspiring to see Warner
Bros. and Legendary Entertainment take a more subtle approach with two of the
least subtle characters in cinema. Up until this point, one of the major
drawbacks of the MonsterVerse films, particularly those featuring
Godzilla, was the dark, hazy visual style.
From posters to trailers to
entire scenes in the final cut of the films, the most common image one would conjure up from
these movies is the vague shape of Godzilla, bathed in mottled light and almost
entirely obscured by clouds, smoke, or fog. This style may have been effective back in
2014, but after three movies with this character, audiences are probably getting a bit bored of the
same visual tropes being used over and over again. It seems the creative team was thinking along
the same
lines, as the vibrant visual palette of "Kong: Skull Island" and the splashes of
color used sparingly in "Godzilla vs. Kong" have now been allowed to spread throughout
"Godzilla x Kong." Both the trailers and the posters stood out as strikingly vibrant compared
to those used for previous Godzilla installments. This apparent desire for color might even
explain some of the film's redesigns, like why Godzilla is now pink or why Kong has a bright
yellow gauntlet or why Godzilla is now pink. "We
've made some minor augmentations." "Oh." With this new liberal use of daylight and bright
colors, Godzilla and Kong feel rejuvenated from a visual perspective. It almost seems as though this
represents the studio asserting both characters as blockbuster heroes rather than opaque figures of
destruction, which — if you ignore the obvious thematic drawbacks of doing that — is a decent
way to breathe new life into the franchise. We're 10 years into the MonsterVerse at
this point, and none of t
he films in the franchise have managed to crack a score of
80% on Rotten Tomatoes. "Godzilla x Kong" specifically was revealed to have a lower
score of 62% ahead of its official release, before quickly falling to a "rotten" score in
the 50s over the course of its opening weekend. For any other film, this lukewarm reception
might have dampened audience excitement and negatively influenced some viewers' decision to
buy tickets — but "Godzilla x Kong" isn't any other film. At this point, fans
of the
MonsterVerse aren't expecting critical acclaim before a release. These are CGI-reliant
spectacles that will score in the high 70s on a good day and deliver exactly what fans
hope to see. From the fans' perspective, it doesn't matter if seasoned movie critics
assess that the narrative doesn't hold up or that the human characters fall flat. These movies
aren't really meant to be showcases of drama. Perhaps this franchise will find the limits of
its audience's appetite for unbalanced a
ction. Until then, as long as the MonsterVerse promises
fans the go-for-broke spectacle they expect, poor reviews are unlikely to affect
its definitive box office dominance.
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